1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data broadcasting system and method, and in particular to a new commercial data broadcasting media utilizing the cellular telephone infrastructure.
2. Description of the Related Art
Commercial advertising has traditionally utilized the advantages of broadcast media to deliver messages to masses of receivers. The most common means of commercial advertising today are TV, Radio, Billboards, newspapers and the Internet. These means typically feature the transmitting of data to potential customers, using the above-mentioned mediums. The value that corporations are prepared to pay for advertisements typically depends on the effectiveness and reach of the advertisements. Any medium that can guarantee reaching a target market is thereby estimated as having commercial value.
During the last decade, cellular telephones have revolutionized global communications, by providing hundreds of millions of users with devices that are able to send and receive audio and/or textual and/or graphic data, from anywhere and at any time. Cellular networks are telecommunications systems in which a portable or mobile radio transmitters and receivers (cellular telephones or “cell phones”) are linked via radio frequencies to base transmitters and receiver stations, which connect the users to wireline (conventional) telephone networks. The geographic region served by a cellular system is subdivided into areas called cells. Each cell typically has a central base station, which is in fact a high power radio transmitter combined with a multi-channel receiver. These base stations can typically transmit data over several frequencies, and in different codes, and also receive a number of cellular transmissions over the same frequency, and analyze the data, using sophisticated algorithms such as CDMA, which enables multiple accesses of subscribers by means of code division (Code Division Multiple Access), or TDMA, which enables multiple accesses of subscribers by means of time division (Time Division Multiple Access). These base stations typically receive data from individual cellular telephones over radio frequency (RF) waves, and distribute data to the subscribers in the surrounding area. Even though this data is in principle available to all RF receivers in the proximity of the base station transmitter, only the particular phone device that was targeted (dialed) by an initiated phone call can actually process the data, because it is given a ‘key’ to break the coding of the data at the beginning of the call (during the ‘handshake’ process, that is discussed below). It is important to understand that all cell phones have special identification codes associated with them, which are used to identify each particular cellular phone unit, the phone's owner and the service provider. A cell phone can typically only be accessed if a call initiator knows all these details.
When a call is placed to a cellular phone, the base station transmits some call initialization data and waits for the cellular unit to respond. The cellular network can choose to either have all the base stations transmit simultaneously and ‘look for’ the cellular phone that the call was made to, or ‘remember’ where the cell phone was last used and try to locate it in that proximity (transmit over a single or limited number of base stations). In either case, when the cell phone has been located (a base station receives the cell phone response), only the base station which receives the cell phone response continues transmitting, while all the other base stations no longer transmit to this user. In some recent networks, such as the CDMA network in Israel, an algorithm exists in which two or three base stations in the proximity of the cell phone all transmit at once, so that even if the phone is moving, it will always be able to receive transmissions from at least one base station, and therefore the call will not be interrupted or disconnected when moving between cells. This function is known as “roaming”, and is one of the key features of the cellular network. Cellular networks typically consist of dozens, and sometimes hundreds of base stations, of which only two or three are typically in use when contacting a particular user.
One other important fact about the cellular network is that when a call to a cellular phone is first initiated, the base station and the cellular phone unit run a so-called ‘hand shake’ procedure, in which they decide on what frequency to operate on, what parameters to use when coding and decoding the messages (the ‘key’ that was mentioned earlier), and also information about the cell unit (as there can be multiple types of cell phones on the same network). After the initial ‘handshake’, the base station can transmit whatever data is received from the network to the cell phone, and can receive data transmitted from the cell phone to the network.
Recently, with the expansion in SMS messaging, cellular telephone companies have begun commercial advertising campaigns aimed to alert their subscriber's as to special offers or alternative announcements. For example, cellular service providers can currently send SMS messages to subscribers notifying them of a new special offers. These messages are typically sent to subscribers by sending each subscriber a message by SMS. Modem cell phones can also navigate the Internet and download data in HTML or WAP formats. This is typically executed in a similar way to a regular, wireline phone call to an internet service provider (like when using a home PC), only here the cellular phone acts as the interface between the user and the internet, much like the PC does at home.
Typical cellular networks profit in providing these and other cellular services to their subscribers, demanding payment for network time (air time). All known services, such as cellular phone calls, WAP navigation and SMS messaging are conducted between individual users and the cellular network. There are no known applications or technologies that utilize the cellular infrastructure to provide data broadcasts to subscribers.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a method and system that can enable broadcasting various types of data to a large number of people who are equipped with mobile communications devices, using the existing cellular infrastructure. Such a system should also ideally offer a new way of broadcasting commercial and other data to consumers and/or subscribers, at any location and at any time, using a variety of communication and computing devices.